Posted at 8:00 a.m.
A matter of time
When televising tennis matches, I would like to know why the stopwatch for the time granted for the service is not displayed on the screen. Is it because the referee is not obliged to take action if the time is exceeded? It would be interesting to see this data. Sports that have stopwatches and where the referee rages, such as basketball, to make an attack, and American football, for the face-off, do so.
Stephane Monarque
Reply from Nicholas Richard
It is difficult to know why the stopwatch intended to calculate the time remaining for the players before serving is not shown at all times on the screen. Probably a lack of space in the frame of the screen or the fact that there is no camera dedicated only to this clock. However, it is often highlighted when players known to take their time to serve are in action, such as Rafael Nadal.
Normally, when the player has not served after the allotted time of 30 seconds, the referee gives a first warning. Then, for each infraction, the player loses a first serve. However, since the stopwatches have been in force – for a little over three years – we have realized that the referees are very lax. Often, it is the opposing player who makes recriminations in this sense. The referees do not want to interfere too often in the course of a match and they sometimes leave one, two or three extra seconds. It should also be noted that the majority of players respect the clock.
From doping… to golf?
I really like watching golf on TV. Have there ever been cases of doping in golf? Could Tiger Woods have been disqualified for taking painkillers to relieve his bruised leg?
Andre Cauvier
Reply from Nicholas Richard
It is true that cases of doping in the world of golf and in the PGA are rather rare. Nevertheless, the PGA and the United States Golf Association (USGA) are very strict on the use of drugs and doping products. The USGA revised its anti-doping policy in 2017. The use of certain drugs is tolerated, but must be approved by a physician. When players like Tiger Woods use painkillers, depending on the substances that are injected, they must be approved by a doctor and by the USGA. There have been less than a dozen cases of doping in the PGA. The best-known case is that of Vijay Singh, who was suspended for three months in 2013 after admitting he had once taken a banned substance consisting of growth hormones.
Why shoot first?
I wonder why, in a shootout, the home team almost always chooses to shoot first. Personally, I would prefer to shoot second.
John Dufresne
Response from Simon-Olivier Lorange
There are indeed two schools of thought, essentially philosophical. We will try to take the lead quickly in order to force the opponent to reply, or we will give ourselves the chance to equalize if we ever concede the first goal. Now there is the mathematical explanation. Since the shootout was introduced in 2005-2006, shooters have scored roughly one in three times. So the first goal increases in value, because the next shooter has a two out of three chance of missing. Having said that, having the choice does not win games, because for 17 years, the home and visiting teams have divided almost equally the games decided in penalty shootouts, with a subtle advantage (50.7% against 49, 3%) at the club on the road.
CapFriendly to the rescue
I would like to know what is the difference, on reference sites like CapFriendly, between the cap hit and theAAVbecause recruits often have AAV very variable. For example, theAAV of Cole Caufield is $1,308,333 (cap hit $880,833) and Nick Suzuki’s is $1,325,833 (cap hit of $863,333).
Pascal Turcotte
Response from Guillaume Lefrancois
the cap hit only takes into account the base salary as well as the commitment bonuses (“signing bonuses”). L’AAV (which means Average Annual Value, i.e. the average annual value) adds performance-related bonuses to this calculation. These bonuses apply mainly to two types of contracts: entry-level contracts (like those of Suzuki and Caufield) and so-called 35-year and over contracts. Zdeno Chara, for example, has a cap hit of $750,000, but a AAV of $1.5 million. These two figures therefore make it possible to distinguish the sums that the player is guaranteed to receive and those that he can get as a bonus if he reaches certain plateaus. These bonuses count in the calculation of a team’s payroll. However, a mechanism in the collective agreement makes it possible to defer to the following season bonuses that result in a team exceeding the ceiling.